Europe is marking one of its most joyous days in history. The 80th anniversary of the end of World War II on the continent was on Thursday.

May 8 marks 80 years since the close of the European theater in World War II, when Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies. The fighting in Europe stopped when the Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces High Command,

May 8, 1944, is a day Bob Russell remembers well. A fighter/bomber pilot with the U.S. Army Air Corps in Europe, he was in a hospital room near Belgium recovering from being shot down when he heard the news that the Germans had surrendered.